Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Monday, September 28, 2009

I haven't bothered posting in a while. With my seasonal job full-speed again, I've been behind on baseball. I'm sure there are 150 unread items on my RSS feed.

It was a rainy morning as I tossed my flex pack envelope into the recycling box, and unpacked my Baseball Bag. (Woman Of 100 Purses, am I.)

Despite the awesomeness of yesterday's game and the crowd that showed up, there turned out to be a little bit of a downer.

Out of all the people at the Rogers Centre that the event staff could have possibly screwed over and, in the process, inadvertently reveal that the winners of the Sweaty Jersey Giveaway were chosen well before the game, they did it to Dustin F.O. Parkes.

Look, I don't really care how Rogers wants to run their draws, or even if there IS no draw. If it's only for account holders, ie season ticket or flex pack holders and other repeat customers, fine. Season ticket holders only? Fine. But do the giveaway at a private session. Don't try to sway the entire crowd into believing that it was in any way random, and then throw in a bonus-kick-in-the-balls by making it a public spectacle at the end of the game and selling us the cute-little-kid factor. Everyone probably thought it was "so nice" that the J-Mac and Snider kiddies randomly won jerseys, when in reality, it had more to do with their parents being either (a) particularly annoying account holders, (b) Rogers employees, or (c) wealthy CEOs who buy box seats.

...and I thought the Yankeefied Sense of Entitlement™ was bad.

It's more than a little insulting, personally, because I fell for it. I buy aisle seats for a reason, and I held my beer for eight innings because I was afraid they'd call mine while I was in the can. That'd be my luck. I didn't even want a freaking jersey! I was honestly more paranoid at the public humiliation factor. I likewise fell for being happy for the random folks who got jerseys. I stayed and watched the presentations at the risk of missing my train. (I barely made it.)

As the aforementioned Drunk Jays Fan said,

I'm ashamed that this club represents the city and fans who turned out on Sunday and acted like one of the best baseball crowds I've ever had the privilege of watching a game with, second only to the attendees of the first World Baseball Classic game between Canada and the U.S.A. earlier this year.

We all deserve much, much better.

Damn straight. I'm not even trusting 50/50 any more. I'll participate in fundraisers where there's no luck or drawing involved, thanks.